


It IS a nice haircut!

by novakid



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Gen, Trans Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 07:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5577490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novakid/pseuds/novakid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's about Rhys and his hair. It's a metaphor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It IS a nice haircut!

She lives in a mining town on Pandora. It's a dirty place; there's dust and coal floating around in the air. She always wonders why her mother always wipes her face with a damp cloth before she goes out to play with her friends if she's just going to get dirty again anyways. 

Always wash your face!

Always take a bath! 

Don't steal!

Don't play with knives!

Tie your hair back!

She hates when her mother nags her around. Especially when it comes to her hair. It's long and ratty and she doesn't care about it at all. Her father says she should cut it. It'll look pretty. 

She doesn't want to look _pretty._ She just wants to play. She wants to be dirty and she wants to play with the cool knives she stole from the kitchen and she definitely doesn't want to tie her hair back. 

One day while she's out playing with her friends, bandits on bikes drive by. She has little understanding of what bandits are. All she knows is that she has to hide whenever they come by. 

But she's too far from her house and the bandits are just too fast on their bikes. It all happens in a blink of an eye. A big man in a mask grabs her hair and tugs on it. Holds a gun to her head. A man nearby, a neighbour, wants to help- he has a gun- but the bandit says the girl will die if he doesn't get food, money, or guns,

She's screaming, because it hurts. Her stupid hair hurts and she hates it. 

She takes the knife she stole from her mother's kitchen out of her jacket pocket, slices her hair off, and stabs the bandit in the leg before running home. She's sure her neighbour will be okay, now that the bandit lost his leverage. 

Her mother is upset. Upset about all the trivial things. You stole from me! Your beautiful hair is all chopped off! You could have gotten hurt!

Her dad says mom is happy that she's alive, really she is. She's just overwhelmed. 

Later that night, she looks at herself in the mirror. Her hair is short and uneven. She runs a hand into it.

She likes it short. 

It looks nice. 

* * *

He's looking into the mirror and he's nervous. Today's the big day. He seems a bit more excited than his room mate. 

"This is it, Vaughn. First day working for Hyperion. You hype yet?" 

Vaughn is not hyped. He's still buttoning his vest while trying to hold onto his mug of coffee. "Well, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't beat 12pm college classes." He frowns and looks at the clock. It's six in the morning. "But... at least this pays."

"Come on. You love numbers. You're getting paid to do number things. That's literally the dream. For uh, you."

He squints and shakes his head. "You know Rhys, you do a good job at oversimplifying what I love."

Rhys smiles and shrugs. Vaughn smiles too, albeit with a soft sigh. 

"How do I check?" Rhys stands so that his side faces Vaughn. He pats his chest. "Flat enough?"

"Pretty good. Don't forget to stretch and adjust it during break."

"I won't." Anxiously, he runs a hand into his hair. "How about my hair?"

"A hot mess. You look like the tiny cowboy from Night at the Museum."

Rhys makes a face and messes up Vaughn's hair.  

It goes well for the first few weeks. Rhys is feeling confident. They meet a few friends. Yvette and Hugo. Yvette is smart, and awfully generous, except when it comes for paying for lunch. Hugo Vasquez is ambitious. Rhys thinks he's funny. Vaughn thinks he's a douche. 

Rhys tries to see the best in people, because that's what he's always been taught, but as time goes on it becomes evident that Hugo is not a good person. 

It becomes more clear when Rhys asks Yvette for a tampon during one lunch break.

Rhys has no problem explaining the situation to people. He's open about it to friends. But Hugo's reactions make him more and more nervous. 

It... wasn't horrible. 

But when Hugo and Rhys are next in line for a new manager position, he blackmails him. He fucking blackmails him. Who blackmails someone to be manager of the mail room?

"The higher ups aren't the most open minded people, Rhys. They're vicious up there. People like... you. It's easy to be taken advantage of."

Rhys' face is red and he's steaming.

"And besides... this type of business. Well, it's for real men. You know what I mean?"

Vasquez makes Rhys step down. As he's leaving, he calls out to Rhys, "No hard feelings, right Rhys? Oh and uh. Get yourself a haircut."

* * *

 

"Did you hear about the new CEO? Apparently he drove away DAHL with a team of vault hunters. That's... sort of amazing, isn't it?"

Vaughn shrugs. "I guess so. I'm just happy that they're off of Helios. I'm not a fan of getting shot at."

Yvette nods in agreement. "New CEOs come and go, Rhys. That's just the way it is. There's nothing amazing about it. Especially... who was that guy? John or something?"

Rhys, Yvette, and Vaughn are having lunch at the Hub of Heroism. Everything is... almost back to normal. People are going back to work. The decor is a new yellow instead of the usual Hyperion black and red. The holoboards have new posters up: "THE NEW FACE OF HYPERION" along side a definite new face.

"Jack. He was this... this programmer. Just simple code monkey. And now he's the goddamn _CEO of Hyperion_." There's a sort of glint in Rhys' eyes as he speaks that makes Vaughn nervous. 

"Um... so? I've never seen you get this giddy over Mr. Tassiter."

"This is different, Vaughn." Rhys uses his hands to gesture, to try to articulate how he's feeling. "Not only did he save us from DAHL and climbed the ranks to CEO... But he was just a programmer! Just think about it. If a guy like him can get to the top, then nothing is really stopping us from getting up there too, right?"

His friends both eye him suspiciously, before looking back at each other. 

"Well, you're not wrong." Yvette says. 

"I dunno, Rhys." Vaughn crosses his arms. "I mean, I don't know about this Jack guy." 

"Oh, come on Vaughn. Would you rather boring old Tassiter? This guy's got... I don't know. Spunk?" Rhys sits back in his seat. "And he sounds like he's actually going to _do_ something. Something important. He says he wants to make Pandora better. I know Pandora, Vaughn. And it's shit. He can actually do something. He can save it. Maybe he really can turn it into paradise?"

"Maybe," Yvette interjects, "He can bring actual food options into Helios instead of the slop they feed us. Come on, Rhys. You're going to deep. Chill out, alright?"

He sighs and nods before running a hand into his hair. For now, he admits defeat. But he's looking through a glass wall over to a poster with Jack's- no, _Handsome Jack's_ face on it. Rhys squints slightly until he sees his own reflection in the glass. 

"Hey, Yvette? Your cousin is a hair dresser, right?"

* * *

 

He wakes up in the rubble of Helios. His arm socket had stopped bleeding. His head was throbbing. Everything hurt. 

Rhys struggles to push himself up with his one arm. It's hard to stand, but he manages. 

He takes a long look around the office that he had destroyed. For a second, he half expects Jack to tell him what an idiot he is. 

He doesn't. 

Rhys reaches back to feel the cybernetics in his pocket. Still there. 

He leans against a wall to try to catch his breath- it's been quickening.

Jack would have said, _'What? Don't tell me you're going to cry.'_

But Jack isn't here, so Rhys can cry while no one is looking. 

Rhys cries for a long time. When he looks up and wipes his eyes, he can see a holoboard with Jack's face flickering on and off. In between its flickering, Rhys sees his own reflection. 

_'You know, I see myself in you, kid.'_

He wonders how long it'll take for him to stop hearing Jack's voice so clearly in his head. 

He tries his own voice; it's low and scratchy. "Come on, Rhys. You're your own person."

Rhys looks around the office for anything useful. He leaves with the rights to Atlas. 

* * *

 

Sasha bypasses him in favour of hugging Vaughn. As much as he understands- Vaughn is pretty damn amazing- Rhys feels a bit hurt. He eyes Vaughn, with 'traitor' mouthed softly. His friend only grins and shrugs. 

When Sasha finishes and looks back at him, she raises an eyebrow. "Oh, hey."

He can hear the bitterness in her voice. "Uh. Hey." This is uncomfortable. "Nice hair."

Her eyes narrow. "Is that a compliment from you? Or... Jack?"

Ouch. "I, haha, think Jack would have worded it differently."

Tension starts to fade. She smiles slightly. "Oh. Then thanks. You too? Your hair, I mean. Looks nice." 

Finally, Rhys relaxes and grins. "Thank you. It's very me, isn't it?"

Fiona is the one to break it up. "Alright, alright. Enough... whatever this is."

The group goes back to discussing the plan, but Rhys looks over to one of the windows. He watches his reflection as he runs his hand into his hair. 

Yeah. It looks nice. 


End file.
